Hilary and John Course have gone through one of the toughest experiences a married couple can face. They were both diagnosed with cancer at the same time: Hilary with melanoma and John with lymphoma. They found themselves on adjacent wards at University Hospital Southampton.
“Many of the staff thought an in-hospital romance was blossoming until they realised we were husband and wife!” recalls Hilary, able to laugh about it now. “John came to visit me in his pyjamas and sat by my bed!”
Fifteen years later, they look back at that period of life, not with resentment but with appreciation. What saved their life was immunotherapy – a treatment which uses the body’s own immune system to find and destroy cancer cells – developed and trialled in Southampton.
John says: “We can see it as positive now. We’ve come through it and we are proud examples of what this amazing treatment can do. We now appreciate every day – it changed our outlook on life.”
Hilary’s story
Hilary was initially diagnosed in 2007 when she noticed a large ‘spot’ on her arm. During surgery to remove it, more cancerous cells were discovered in her lymph nodes and were also removed. Hilary was given the all-clear, but four years later, in 2011, things started to get worse again. A CT scan revealed the melanoma had come back and was present in the lymph nodes around her windpipe.
Devastatingly, this was just a few months after John’s diagnosis. Hilary began chemotherapy for her melanoma, now at stage four (an advanced stage). It initially seemed to work, and Hilary felt well again, but after just a few months, things worsened.
She was given new hope in the form of the immunotherapy drug ipilimumab, given in conjunction with radiotherapy. “When I found out about immunotherapy and how it boosts your immune system, I was amazed. It sounded like such a natural idea, I was very willing to give it a go. It’s incredible what the body can do!”
The treatment worked immediately. “After just three lots of ipilimumab, the melanoma had vanished!” exclaims Hilary. CT scans showed only scar tissue remained.
John’s story
While Hilary was fighting melanoma, John was facing his own battle. He was enjoying early retirement, but things changed when he felt a swollen gland in his neck. A hospital biopsy revealed it was stage three lymphoma.
John took part in a trial*, involving a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy. It was hoped the immunotherapy would significantly increase John’s chances of beating the cancer. The immunotherapy drug that John received was rituximab, an antibody drug which works by sticking to a protein marker to the cancerous cells so that they can be identified by the immune system and its killer cells (T cells) can then do their job and destroy them.
After three treatments, a CT scan showed that all the tumours had shrunk except one, which was removed, before John had three more rounds of treatment.
John went on to have radiotherapy as a precautionary action and started his ‘maintenance treatment’, taking the immunotherapy drug rituximab every two months for a further two years – up to the end of 2014 when he was in remission.
Both ipilimumab and rituximab are now used routinely to treat cancer patients worldwide, a testament to the impact of the research pioneered in Southampton.
A new lease of life
John says: “Cancer gives you a realisation. It makes you think about things in a new way and encourages you to do more with your life.” Hilary adds: “It’s a privilege to grow old. So, you have to do something with it.”
And that’s exactly what they’ve done.
Once the couple were fully recovered, they set out to see the world. Trips to America, Vietnam, Cambodia, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa have opened their eyes and minds, giving them memories they will cherish forever.
Next up is Canada and South India, but a trip to China in 2028 feels particularly significant. “We had a trip to China planned,” Hilary explains. “But then we were diagnosed with cancer, so we had to cancel it. It will be amazing to get there finally – it’s a really interesting country.” But perhaps the greatest journey Hilary and John have started since recovering from cancer is becoming grandparents. Their eldest son Mark had a baby boy with his wife Abbi in April 2026 and both Hilary and John couldn’t be prouder.
“He’s very special,” Hilary says. “A baby is so precious and puts a lot of perspective on things. We are incredibly grateful to be here, to be able to spend time with him.”
Research support
Despite the many wonderful moments the last decade has brought for the couple, there have been difficult times too. Eight years ago, Hilary’s mother passed away from vascular dementia. She says: “It was a gradual decline. We used to say she was pleasantly confused about things. But really, it’s a horrible thing to happen to you and for our family to see it. Dementia is an underfunded and under-researched area – as a society, we need to do more.”
Dementia and cancer are two of the five research areas that the University of Southampton’s new Institute for Medical Innovation (IMI) will focus on. The centre will bring together the greatest minds in medicine, computer science and engineering under one roof to use the latest advances in AI, genomics and tissue analysis to accelerate the development of new treatments. Alongside dementia and cancer, it will focus on three other major disease areas, united by the common thread of a misfiring immune system and an urgent need for more research: sight loss, infection, and respiratory and allergic conditions.
The couple, who supported the University’s campaign to build the Centre for Cancer Immunology, are excited by the new plans. John says: “When we were diagnosed with cancer, we had no idea all this research was going on in Southampton. We have said we will never move from this area because the treatment and the research that has led to it have been so good. We will always be eternally grateful to the researchers, scientists and doctors in Southampton and to see what the new centre aims to do is very exciting. It sounds absolutely fantastic. Bringing different disciplines together in the same space offers so much potential.”
* The trial that John took part in was one of a series testing the antibody rituximab, which has been the subject of extensive studies in the immunology laboratories in Southampton, to find out how it works in treating lymphoma and how the effects can be made better for patients in the future. Southampton was one of the first places in the UK to test this treatment and others like it.
